Teenage Lobotomy

Christian Garcia (DE/CH)

Music is not innocent. Nothing shapes identity more strongly than the soundscapes of our childhood.
But: what do we expect from music in a theatrical performance? Either it’s rather unimportant, something in the background, perhaps illustrative, at any rate not on an equal par with the other aspects of theater. Something like that. Or it’s meant to release us from the permanent acoustic carpeting of commercial, political, or social propaganda and be something pleasantly else – this as well being something of a means to an end. The Swiss theater artist and musician Christian Garcia puts music in the center of his staging, while at the same time refusing us the concert. Two musicians, two guitars, two mikes, two chairs, two speakers, a whole lot of cable. Melancholically he loops the things we hear, seizing the incessant flood of sound and words and the instrumentalized sound of our everyday life. At the same time, however, he distills an antidote to the acoustic brainwashing that we are continually exposed to. For all the endless reproducibility of tones and images, their lasting accessibility and excessive use has fundamentally marked our perceptual capabilities. It is nearly impossible to divest oneself of the capitalist interests in repetition. Christian Garcia uses the means of the theater, with its possibilities for increased attentiveness, to decipher music and sound as almost material signs.

ON

Duration 75 Min

www.christiangarcia.ch

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